Ready the Ground 3

Matthew 13:7

Although it is important to us to have a nice flower garden in the front of our house we have found that we are far too busy to maintain it. About once a year in the summer we will all go out to the front garden and attack the weeds. They usually grow very tall and thick and it takes a great deal of effort to pull them all out so the flowers can be revealed.

Such can be our spiritual life if we allow it. As Jesus continued with the parable of the farmer sowing seeds, what is the third type of ground that the seeds fall on? What did the thorns do?

Keeping in mind that the farmer represents God and the seed is the generous grace of God, we see that sometimes the soil of our faith is filled with thorns and weeds. These thorns represent all the cares and worries of our life. They represent all the temptations and sins we face each day.

In the parable the thorns grew up and choked out the good seed that was sown. Just as our life may be blessed by the good things God gives us – His presence, His love – we sometimes allow the worries of life to choke this goodness. We claim to have faith in God but we have trouble handing over all of our fears and concerns. We believe in God, but often we are weak in our faith and fall prey to the lures of temptation.

When we let worries control us, when we let the temporary, earthly pleasures fill our minds and draw us in, then we are allowing God’s goodness to be limited in us. We let the troubles and pain, the sin of life to crowd out the grace of God. God’s love has no opportunity to grow in us. We fail to make the blessings of God and the love of God part of who we are.

We must tend the ground of our faith. We must care for the garden of our spirituality. It is up to us to pull out the weeds of faith – those earthly fears and desires – that push out God. If we can remove the tendency to worry, if we can learn to trust God, if we can learn to rely on the Lord’s strength, we can keep out those things that block the Lord’s blessings. We can allow God’s love to grow in the soil of our faith.

DAILY CHALLENGE: How can you pull the weeds of faith in your heart?